The present invention relates to an exterior member mounting unit, such as a molding, on a roof.
Some vehicle roofs are provided with roof channels formed to extend longitudinally on both sides of the roof, and such roof channels are covered with exterior members such as moldings. In such cases, brackets are generally mounted in the bottoms of the roof channels and the exterior members are mounted on the brackets via clips as disclosed in patent reference 1.
Patent reference 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-328492
In the installation of the exterior members described above, however, since the exterior members eventually cover the openings of the roof channel openings, the brackets must be mounted to the roof channel bottoms (a fastening operation involving bolts) before mounting the exterior members to the brackets via clips to thereby cover the openings of the roof channels. That is, the mounting of the brackets and the mounting of the exterior members are separate and independent operations. More specifically, the following steps are required: (i) arranging the brackets on the roof channel bottoms, (ii) inserting the bolts through the brackets and the roof groove bottoms (through holes), (iii) screw-tightening nuts onto the bolts (bracket fastening operation), and (iv) installing the exterior members with the clips installed therein in advance to the brackets utilizing said clips. This situation is not necessarily acceptable, as the assembly steps required for these operations for mounting exterior members to a roof are many rather than few.
The present invention has been proposed in view of the above situation, and a first object of the present invention is to provide an exterior member mounting unit capable of increasing the efficiency in the operations of mounting exterior members to a vehicle roof.
A second object of the present invention is to provide an exterior member mounting structure utilizing the aforementioned exterior member mounting unit.
A third object of the present invention is to provide a method for using the aforementioned exterior member mounting unit.